Published on April 11, 2020
AHMEDABAD: On Saturday morning, Ahmedabad — the only national Covid-19 hotspot from Gujarat – crossed 200 cases. With rise of 31 cases in a matter of 12 hours, the tally now stands at 228. The figure is 52% of Gujarat’s total 432 positive cases.
Jayanti Ravi, principal secretary (health & family welfare), mentioned on Saturday morning that the state added 54 more cases since Friday evening — 31 from Ahmedabad, 18 from Vadodara, 3 from Anand and one each from Surat and Bhavnagar.
“The situation is under control and the progression of figures is on expected lines. It’s result of aggressive testing strategy at identified hotspots in the state. More cases would mean that we would be able to quickly isolate and treat the patients with any symptoms,” said Ravi.
In a matter of 24 hours, Gujarat carried out 1593 tests out of which 124 were positive, 1,187 were negative and result for 282 cases was pending. Cumulatively, Gujarat has carried out 8,331 tests to identify positive patients – 432 samples were positive and 7,617 were negative.
Ravi said that as part of the cluster containment strategy, intensive disinfection drive would be carried out in all identified hotspots. “Moreover, there would be a testing carried out in the districts from where no positive cases have been reported so far. We are under no illusion that there are no cases from these spots –- the strategy is to ensure that such cases are identified in time,” said the principal secretary.
She added that at current rate, Gujarat is conducting 132 tests per million (10 lakh) population which would be increased and expanded to areas apart from the identified clusters and hotspots.
With the new cases, Ahmedabad now has 228 positive cases, 77 in Vadodara, 28 in Surat, 23 in Bhavnagar, 18 in Rajkot, 14 each in Gandhinagar and Patan, 7 in Bharuch, 5 in Anand, 4 in Kutch, 3 in Porbandar, 2 each in Mehsana, Gir Somnath, Chhota Udepur and 1 each in Panchmahal, Jamnagar, Morbi, Sabarkantha and Dahod.
With one more Covid-19 positive patient discharged from Gandhinagar on Saturday, the state has so far 34 survivors. Out of 432 cases, 19 are dead, 34 are discharged and 376 are stable. Ravi said that remaining three patients are on ventilator and are considered critical.
In a question related to a health worker at Civil Hospital tested positive on Friday night, Ravi said that they are looking into the matter and are also identifying the staff members who might have come in contact with the health worker.
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